Green Forest, AR

Green Forest is a city in Carroll County that began as Scott's Prairie, a settlement linked to John Scott, an early settler remembered for making sheep and cowbells. A log Baptist church opened in 1854 and also served as a school. After the Civil War, a new post office opened in 1867; the name Green Forest came from a grove of shade trees left standing on John Grim's farm. The railroad arrived a few years later, running about a mile south of the older settlement. Stores and other businesses gathered around the depot in a district known as New Town, though a 1902 fire destroyed several of its early buildings.

The city's built story still has several layers: the old business area, a public library that opened in 1935, and the water tower built in 1937. Green Forest School District serves the community from elementary school through high school, with intermediate and middle grades in between. Agriculture remains part of the surrounding Carroll County picture, while the town's calendar carries on the tradition of gatherings through Green Forest Appreciation Day and Agriculture Appreciation Day. Green Forest feels like a railroad-era town that kept its county roads, schools, and local traditions close together.